A 1968 M.F.A. graduate of the Yale School of Art, Peter Rosen is a prolific and award-winning filmmaker who has made more than 100 feature films, many focused on the arts, involving collaborations with major figures such as Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, Beverly Sills, Sherrill Milnes, Stephen Sondheim, Martha Graham, Placido Domingo, Van Cliburn, and I. M. Pei. 

In 1970, Rosen made two films in New Haven: first, I'm a Man, about the activist leader John Barber, Jr., who was arrested on the New Haven Green for carrying a spear. The film won awards at the American Film Festival and the Oberhausen Film Festival, and circulated widely to high schools and colleges. Rosen donated the original picture negative for I'm a Man in 2021.

Rosen followed his first film with Bright College Years, which focuses on the Yale campus and New Haven during the Mayday protests of the spring of 1970, as well as the Yale College reunion that took place shortly thereafter. Made with support from a grant from legendary producer Joseph E. Levine, the film was distributed by Avco Embassy Pictures, aired on PBS, and won a Gold Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival as well as the award for Best First Feature Film at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972. 

While the Yale Film Archive held extensive outtakes from the film, the picture and track elements for the film are lost. Thanks to the Pacific Film Archive, the Yale Film Archive was able to preserve the film from the best available reversal print.